"What must Ukraine do to avoid losing Euro 2012?" Michel Platini asked, repeating a question posed by Simon Kuper. The UEFA President, writes Kuper, "puffs out his cheeks, drums a rhythm on the table with his fingers. What he says next implies that ... Uefa may remove Ukraine as co-host of the 2012 European Championships."

Platini took the UEFA job last year, "promising to rebalance football. No longer would rich clubs eat the game." Part of that process was awarding the 2012 European Championship jointly to Poland and the Ukraine, but since then there have been persistent worries about the latter's infrastructure. When UEFA's executive committee meets in Bordeaux this Thursday and Friday, said Platini, "we will confirm that decision, or not confirm it."

"It's easy to have four stadiums in Ukraine and Poland," Platini said. "You simply pay. But there aren't the airports, the hotels, sports centers for the visiting teams. In Donetsk there's a big stadium, but a hotel? So we must take a good decision. It's difficult to have the tournament in Poland and Ukraine, and it's very, very difficult to change it."